PASADENA, Calif. — Patty Greene of "Square Pegs" or Carrie Bradshaw of "Sex and the City."

Will the real Sarah Jessica Parker please stand up?

Not so fast, Carrie.

According to the actress who defined Manhattan cool for six seasons on HBO, the shy, bookish social outcast on the 1980s high school sitcom is much more like her in real life than the sophisticated sex columnist in Jimmy Choo shoes who swills Cosmopolitans, hangs out with a great-looking group of friends and dates every eligible bachelor in the Big Apple.

"Trust me, Patty Greene was me then, and she's still me," Parker says, pleading her case in a Pasadena hotel suite. "I never go out. I never go to clubs. I never go to parties.

"And it's not just because I have a son," she adds. "Even before he was born, I was never the one who went out at night. It's my husband (Matthew Broderick). He appears to be the shy wallflower, but he's the one who goes out all the time, and it's me who stays home.

"That character on "Square Pegs" was more like me than any character I've ever played. And it stuck with me for a long, long time. After that, I was always playing the cerebral best friend of the pretty girl. I didn't get to attract the opposite sex until the movie "L.A. Story."

With that working history, the 40-year-old Parker said she has to laugh every time she thinks about the hot and sexy image that surrounds her in the wake of "Sex and the City."

"I am flattered by it, but I am also amused by it. I am amused by the labels people put on you in this business. It was hardly a burden to be thought of like that, but I knew the truth. I didn't look the part. I was hardly the Hollywood standard of beauty. That whole sex symbol thing is funny.

"It all boils down to good acting," she said with a laugh.

Parker is acting again in "The Family Stone," a holiday "dramedy" that opened Friday in which Parker (in a Golden Globe-nominated role) plays the uptight, overly sensitive girlfriend of Dermot Mulroney. A career woman from New York City, she is the proverbial sacrificial lamb thrown into a lion's den when she must face her boyfriend's quirky and judgmental family, headed by Craig T. Nelson and Diane Keaton.

The character in "The Family Stone" is the direct opposite of Carrie, and Parker said that was just one of its charms.

"Trust me, I am not burdened by the legacy of Carrie Bradshaw," she said. "But I know I have to work harder to prove that I am a working actor. Meredith (her character in "The Family Stone") was not only radically different than Carrie, she was unlike anyone I've ever met.

That was a good start on the rest of my career."